


Blood Song

by sennawritesthings



Category: The Winner's Trilogy - Marie Rutkoski
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-01-24 20:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21343978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sennawritesthings/pseuds/sennawritesthings
Summary: every vampire has their own power to lure in unsuspecting victims. arin's is the song he sings. one night, he hears his song calling to him from a human.
Relationships: Arin/Kestrel (The Winner's Trilogy)
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not the most original title, but hey. i gotta work with what i got lol
> 
> also pls bear with me. third person present tense is something i'm experimenting with, so forgive the mistakes and oddly worded sentences.

**Year One**

Hunger

Arin hates the familiar throb in his mouth and the tell tale signs of his eyes turning black when his vision begins to tunnel.

For as many animals as he chooses to drink from, his thirst is never satiated as it is with a human. Still, he hunts for any warmblooded animal he crosses paths with. Unfortunately, there was not a single animal nearby, having fled from the predator roaming through the forest.

He picks up the sounds of a blacksmith and the thud of hooves on the ground. There’s whistles and laughs, the clinking of glass against glass and the swish of skirts through the air. Most of all, he can hear the drumming heartbeats of hundreds of people. He can smell them, too, the blacksmith’s scent being the closest of them all. Copper and soot and iron and flame. It’s not the most appealing of the scents he smells, but he would have no trouble luring the man away given that he was on the outskirts of the village.

Arin’s feet carry him toward the blacksmith, and just as he’s about to break through the trees, his song ready to spill from his tongue, the happy squeal of a child that carries the same scent as the blacksmith and florals rings through his ears, making him stop short.

From his spot he sees the child, no older than the age of four, dart toward the blacksmith, who’s kneeling on the ground, holding his arms open for his daughter to run into. She doesn’t seem to care at all that he is covered with soot.

A woman smelling of roses and cocoa comes up behind her, chastising the child for leaving her behind. She softens when the man stands, his daughter in his arms, to place a kiss against her cheek.

“She missed you,” the woman says. Shyly, she adds, “I did, too.”

For a moment, Arin’s hunger is forgotten as he watches the family. Memories of him running into his mother’s arms, of her kissing his head as she tucks him in after finishing a story, fill his head. Memories of his father teaching him to fight, to control and hone his siren song, and how to rule; memories of his sister playing tricks on him with her illusionary power soon follow.

His eyes sting with tears he can’t shed because he doesn’t have them. He can’t cry like the humans can. He can’t cry at all. Arin chokes back a broken sob.

And then the scent of blood hits him.

The girl is crying. She’s scraped her knee.

The hunger returns tenfold now that spilled blood is in play. Arin’s vision tunnels and his fangs elongate, pulsing with the need to sink into flesh.

_Never a child_, he thinks. _Never a child._

And he will not make the child an orphan, even if it meant he starved.

He holds his breath, spinning on his heel and runs away. He runs and runs and runs until he is far, far away from the village, from humanity, until he is nearly back where those like him live. He only stops when the smell of a wolf drifts through his nostrils.

It watches him with its teeth bared, a growl ripping through its teeth the closer Arin gets. Arin can smell the pups it’s protecting nearby. He nearly runs away from them, too, but he’s too hungry and the last thing he wants to do is ask a fellow blood-drinker for a sip. They usually expect something more.

The wolf charges at him, and though Arin can’t use his song on his animals, the wolf will lose.

*

Late at night, after the village folk have settled in for bed, Arin finds himself at the village once more. He carries three dozing wolf pups in his arms, using a bedspread he stole from the clothing line of a noble blood drinking family to keep them warm from the slight chill.

He leaves one of the pups, along with a shredded bit of the sheet as a bed for it, at the door of the blacksmith’s home. Then he sniffs the air, and leaves another pup with a family of six. He leaves the last pup at the door of an elderly woman, who smells of sorrow and grief.

When he is done, he hides in the trees and watches as the blacksmith, the shopkeeper, and the elderly woman open their doors to whining pups, each of them accepting them with a grin. The old woman has tears in her eyes.

“Fitz,” she says, tenderly, naming the pup before taking him inside to feed.

With a warm heart, Arin returns to the cabin he built for himself, hidden in the mountains, before the sun rose and burned his skin.


	2. Chapter 2

The Singer

Arin sighs as he studies a map. He wants to visit some place new, but there isn’t a place where he hasn’t visited in his the centuries of life. Some he’s visited numerous times.

Humans may be afraid of the blood-drinkers, but there are many who wish to become one. There are many who cross the invisible border into their territory to beg the pureblooded blood-drinkers to change them and grant them eternal life and youth.

He doesn’t understand why.

Eternal life was quite dull. And lonely for those that didn’t have a family, and that couldn’t trust anyone to be their friend. Much like Arin.

He tries not to think about the mob of blood-drinkers and humans alike storming his childhood home one cold, rainy night. How his sister had grabbed him from his bed and shoved him through one of the secret passageways to escape, locking the entrance to it behind him so he couldn’t turn back to help her or his parents.

He has long since forgiven those that had taken his family from him, for they had done so on a lie given to them by the current ruling authority in his world. Still… still…

His fingertip drifts along the map and he briefly shuts his eyes, letting his body do as it pleases. When Arin stops his hand and opens his eyes, he’s surprised to find that his finger points to a region of undiscovered land. He frowns, confused, feeling as though something is missing…

Ah. He had forgotten to update his map to add the newly established country that claimed the territory two decades prior. He pencils in what he remembers on his map before tucking away the map and his charcoal in a sack to take with him. He will finish the rest of the map once he has explored the country. He has yet to visit it, but he has heard stories from other blood-drinkers about the odd, blasphemous ways of its people.

As if their very existence wasn’t blasphemous.

And there were stories about people who hunted them, be it for sport or for protection. Many of those like him didn’t wish to go anywhere near them, but Arin would take that chance for something new.

“Northwest,” he says to himself.

He was going northwest, toward where he assumed would be the capital of Valoria. Home of the emerging blood-drinker hunters.

***

It is not the sounds of a bustling capital that slows Arin’s journey. He knows that he is still some days away from the new country of Valoria. It is the sound of a familiar song drifting through the forest as if carried by the wind.

The song freezes every bone in his body. His blood slows. He feels the creeping burn of thirst lodge in his throat, the dull ache of his fangs, and the hollowing of his vision. There is something else, too. Something new. Something Arin has never felt before.

A pull deep in his soul. Something calling out to him.

It’s a familiar tune. One he knows well because it’s _his_. The words that go along with it are on the tip of his tongue, but his mouth is locked shut.

Steadily, his feet begin to carry him through the trees, following the song on their own accord. He wonders if this was how the humans he’s fed from in the past felt. Lucid enough to know that what was happening was not normal, and panicking at not being able to control their bodies. His gut twists as he remembers the fear he smells on them and the thought that despite everything, his very existence can strike fear into their hearts.

He’s begun to hum along with the tune, his body veering him more and more off course. The song becomes increasingly louder and louder, not just in his ears but in his head like buzzing bees, invisible fingers strumming and pulling at strings deep within him.

Arin had to control himself. He could not lose control. Once he did, he didn’t know if he could be stopped. He remembers once, long ago, when he had had to execute one of his own kind on the orders of the Elders because she let herself fall too deeply into her hunger. She slaughtered two whole towns, children and all, wailing, “_My love is gone. I killed her.”_

He is not noticed as he is brought to a campsite. Several people wearing garish clothing and painted faces sit around a fire, some eating and some talking amongst themselves.A woman is throwing oddly shaped wood carvings in the air, catching them from one hand to the other. There is a man putting a torch of flames down his throat. There are four very large carriages anchored to the ground around them. He’s never seen any that large or oddly shaped before. He hears the grumble of a lion coming from one.

The pull is so strong here, and his fangs pulse so hard his jaw aches, he nearly steps away from his hiding place to follow it. To put an end to it.

He opens his mouth to sing, but is stopped when the song abruptly ends. His vision clears and his fangs tuck away. He can no longer smell… anything. His thirst retreats, taking the burn in his throat with it, but something else is burning now.

Something is pressed to the back of his neck, making his skin itch. And though he has oddly lost his sense of smell, he can still make out the faint scent of burning flesh.

Ah.

_Oh._

Wild rose and hawthorn. Already he can feel the effects in his body. It’s a feeling most similar to being in the sun—lethargic and dazed as the light fizzles the skin. But wild rose and hawthorn is a quick poison that moves through the blood until a blood-drinker’s own body eats itself from the inside out. It can be reversed, if given the antidote in time.

If he is not careful, one wrong move and whatever the dangerous weapon at his neck is could pierce his skin.

The burning sensation leaves Arin’s skin for a few blissful moments, his senses returning to him briefly, but enough to tell him that his attacker is female and smells of wildflowers and hay. The song and the pull starts again, only to be stopped when he is spun and kicked in the shin before his body is slammed into the tree he had been using as his hiding place.

His senses dull again when the girl places a branch of wild rose and hawthorn at his neck. Arin tries to shy away, but she will not let him, pressing the branch harder into his jugular. He freezes so it does not puncture his skin. His eyes sting at the burn.

She says something to him, but he doesn’t understand.

He tells himself that it isn’t because he’s entranced by her golden hair and the lightest brown eyes he’s ever seen. They are almost like liquid gold. Or the dots of glimmer that freckle her face.

Her eyes narrow as she says something to him again—the same smooth, sharp sounds as before—and he realizes that she is asking him something, but he doesn’t understand because he truly doesn’t understand.

“I—”

But he is cut off when she pressed the branch further into him. It is still not enough just yet to puncture his skin, but he remains as still as possible. He doesn’t even breathe.

She studies him closely, and then in heavily accented Herrani, she asks, “Who are you?”

Arin doesn’t quite know if he should tell her his name, so when she lightly drags the branch across his skin, and he feels it scratch, he hisses out, “Smith.”

The poison is working its way through his body. His blood is boiling. The scratch burns and he can feel his flesh being eaten away bit by bit.

“You lie.”

He grits his teeth, and the girl steps back, the branch falling from her hand. The song begins again, filling his head with the erratic thumps of her heart. Perhaps he’s mistaking that of his own, which he feels trying to pulse the poison through him. Perhaps it’s the throb of his fangs that have begun again. But there’s no mistaking that his song is coming from _her. _From her blood.

Her wild scent is replaced with the must of sweat.

The girl’s eyes are widened in fear, and she makes a grab for the branch, holding it out in front of her as a shield. “You’re a _vampire_,” she gasps in surprise.

He wants to ask what a _vampire_ is, but his legs are failing him, and he needs to get to a healer. With a growl that has the girl stumbling back and falling onto her back, Arin half runs and half stumbles through the trees. His vision is blurring. When he reaches up to touch his neck, he finds himself touching the nerves beneath.

Arin pushes his legs to move faster, faster. His lungs are shriveling. Soon he is stumbling falling through a door, just barely catching himself as he end up on the floor. He makes out a shadow leaping up from their seat.

“What in gods—”

“Wild rose and hawthorn,” he rasps out before he slips deep into darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

Gone

Arin sleeps for a fortnight.

Slowly, slowly, he can feel the poison receding. He can feel the eroded parts of his body merge and stitch together. He can feel his lungs fill like the hot air balloons he once watched float along the clouds from the safety of a cave when he was a child. His heart beats normally.

He vaguely remembers seeing the slanted ceiling of a cabin and a flame roaring in a dugout hearth in the ground. He vaguely remembers a wet cloth being pressed to his lips and the smell of blood. Fresh, pure blood.

But he is in the in-between. He does not know what is real and what is a dream. And dream he does.

Arin dreams of a golden-haired and golden-eyed girl with a wild scent and stars for freckles. He dreams of her strong, accented Herrani, whispering, “vampire, vampire, vampire,” whatever that meant. She says other things, too. Softer than how she says vampire—full of malice and disgust—and her face softens when she says them. She smiles when she says them.

He dreams of being tied at the end of a rope, being pulled further and further into a light source that he can’t see, and one that does not burn him as the sun does. It’s warm. It’s tender. It’s full of love.

For him. A monster. But it accepts him anyway.

The poison is not gone just yet, so Arin sleeps and sleeps.

***

“Are you going to tell me how you managed to get poisoned?”

The last thing Arin wants to do is tell his old family friend, Tensen, just exactly how he was poisoned. Mostly because it didn’t feel real to Arin. Though perhaps he was struggling to come to terms with being bested by a human. They typically _ran away_ from him, not pick up a poisonous branch and attack him.

He supposes he’s had his first encounter with a blood-drinker hunter.

It didn’t help that Arin had only been awake for five minutes. Or that he is hungry and Tensen’s blood smells… delectable and full of power that the monster within wanted Arin to take. To add to that irritability, he’s been laying on an uncomfortable cot for fourteen days. His body aches. He needs fresh air.

“I’m not.”

Tensen levels Arin with a flat look of annoyance, but he doesn’t press him. They both know he doesn’t have that authority.

But he did help Arin when he could’ve used that opportunity to gain power. And Arin was putting the older blood-drinker in danger just by being there. So Arin tells him about the strange group he saw and about the golden-haired girl with his song in her blood.

Tensen pales. He averts his gaze from him, busying himself with making tea for him. Arin holds his breath as the older man slices his palm and lets his blood fall into the tea before his wound heals.

“Do you know what that means?” Arin asks him, though it’s obvious that he does. Tensen doesn’t seem inclined to tell Arin anything.

The fire in the hearth sputters out with a tilt of Arin’s head. The chirping birds outside of the cabin quiet. Even the breeze seems to halt.

“What does that mean, Tensen?”

Though it’s posed as a question, Arin is not asking. Tensen tenses, eyeing Arin over his shoulder warily. He knows Tensen can hear the sharp, cold command in his voice. It is not something Arin likes to do. It’s not something Arin _ever_ does, but Tensen, despite being a friend of his family and remaining loyal to them—to _him_—liked to keep his secrets, even when his knowledge would benefit them all.

Tensen finishes making the tea, pours all the pinkish-red liquid into a bowl, and hands it to Arin. He settles on a stool by the dead fire. Arin gulps down his tea.

“It means you should stay away from her,” says the elder blood-drinker. At Arin’s raised brow, he adds, “She’s a Siren. They’re quite rare, one being found every couple centuries. And much like us, each of their calls is different. For you, her blood sings your song to you. Your sister had her illusionary power, so her Siren would have a call similar to that.”

Arin tries—and fails—not to flinch at the mention of his sister. Tensen bows his head in apology.

“They are the closest thing we have to a mate.”

Arin chokes. He suddenly wishes he had taken his time with his tea.

Tensen’s lips quirk in amusement, but his lips fall just as quickly as they rose. “But Sirens are dangerous, Arin. The call won’t stop until she’s dead, and when she is, you’ll feel it.”

He doesn’t know why, but he thinks of the blood-drinker who murdered two towns. _My love is gone. I killed her._ His thoughts must be written on his face because Tensen nods, and Arin can tell the old man was thinking of her, too.

“The call can be a powerful thing once heard,” Tensen warns. “It is imperative that you do everything in your power to stay away from her.”

Arin is silent for a moment, mulling over Tensen’s warning. It’s unwarranted as Arin has no intention of seeing the girl again. But even if he has no intention, Arin feels the call toward her deep in his soul.

*

That night, just before Arin leaves Tensen’s cabin, he remembers something.

“What does…” He struggles to form the word, and it comes out as accented as the girl’s Herrani. “_Vampire_ mean?”

Tensen huffs out a laugh as he packs his own bag to visit the Elders. “It’s what the Valorians named us. It means blood-drinker.”

He lets out a laugh of his own.

*

Arin decides to continue toward the Valorian capital, stopping only to make note on his map of each village he passes and of notable terrain.

Just as Tensen warned, Arin feels the call toward the girl. It’s faint, but he can feel the tugging. Arin only just comes to realize that when he first set out on his journey to visit the new country, he felt that tugging, telling him where to go. It had grown stronger the closer he was to Valoria, until he was close enough for the call to take control and guide him to her.

Arin frowns. Of all things, he just _had_ to find his Siren.

Brooding, he watches a mother gift her daughter a blade. Even from his distance from the town and his perch in the tree, the hairs on his body rises. _Flee_, his instincts tell him. _Flee_. So he does. He does not stop until the feeling is gone and replaced with something else entirely.

The scent of wildflowers and hay.

The delighted tugs, beckoning him to go east. _This way, this way._

He takes in his surroundings to find that he’s at the campsite from a few weeks ago. The kindling for the fire that was there still lay in a pile, and there were track marks and footprints still on the ground, but there was no sight of what Tensen had called a traveling circus. No sight of the girl.

He tries not to think about the slight disappointment that curls in his gut.

_This way._

Arin sits on the ground and pulls out his map and a piece of charcoal. He crosses out the town he had been studying, making note that they have dangerous weapons toward vampires. Then he notes that the traveling circus is heading east, toward Dacra.

Arin continues his trek northwest.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey yoooooo i'm back. did you miss me? probably not, that's ok. 😂 the holidays were insane, and i kind of burned myself out a little bit so i took a small break. and then i didn't feel so great about my writing, so the small break turned into a bit of a longer one than originally planned. but we're here now. 🤩 i'm so sorry for the delay and for any inconsistencies that may run amok in this here update. i didn't really go back and read what i had written (😬), i just skimmed. but hopefully you enjoy regardless, and here's to hoping the next portion comes out much faster than this one. happy reading! (and stay safe out there!!) 🤗💕

**Year Four**

Encore

Arin smells the tangy scent of metal mixed with the unmistakeable must of fear. He hears the racing hearts, feels the thrum of their beats and his skin pricks, an itch he can’t scratch deep within his body with a message to flee.

And he knows war is brewing.

Not now, perhaps not even within the next year or so, but he remembers the attacks on his family and many of the other noble families in his world and it feels the same to him.

Already, within the four years of his travels, the Valorians have invaded many Herrani villages, bringing with them the weapons that make his skin crawl even from miles away. They instill fear of vampires into people wherever they go, no matter if the town was once ruled and protected by a vampire, or still aligned themselves with the council that had overtaken the odd monarchy his kind.

The mortals fear them now. Some still believe in them, and stand with them. They don’t live long.

He marks each invaded town on his map, doubly marks which ones carry the weapons and which ones have begun to produce the weapons. Briefly, he wonders if the council knows about the mortals’ actions, and if they do, were they hiding it?

It wouldn’t surprise him. If the council had been capable of covering up the riots that killed his family, blaming it solely on the humans and vampires they’d said were mad rather than sharing they’d been orchestrated by the council themselves to gain power, they were capable of anything.

Just as well, Arin knew he was anything but safe, be it from the invading Valorians and their vampire weapons or the council. He needs to keep moving.

He flinches as he watches two Valorian soldiers storm into a farmer’s home. He sends a prayer to the gods the Herrani are fond of, the gods his family believed in despite being monsters. He doesn’t think they hear him, but he prays nonetheless. He closes his eyes as if it can block out the screaming coming from the home. He holds his breath to keep from inhaling the scent of the blood that wafts through the air, beckoning him closer. When the screaming stops, he opens his eyes and marks his map.

He should have helped. The town had been his family’s to reign and protect when they were alive, and though Arin didn’t rule over them, he liked to check on the people from time to time.

He should have helped them.

A snap from the forest rips him from his thoughts, and Arin realizes that his senses were so focused on the raid in the town, he didn’t think to check _his_ surroundings.

He’s been seen.

He smells the metal, the scent of vinegar and ale mixed with old, dried blood, and the fear dripping off her like water. He hears the soft, steady breathing and delicate crunch of the soldier trying to sneak up on him. Every part of him wants to run, run, run, feeling the repellent weapon she carries with her grow ever closer.

He doesn’t move. He can’t. She had already been too close, and he knows she wouldn’t hesitate to strike him down. That she hadn’t already meant _her_ weapon was a close range one that would have to run through him to kill him, rather than the long range ones he’d seen in action.

Arin understands then that his powers, while rather useless to the long range weapons as anyone from a distance out of his reach can hit him, the daggers and swords and other short ranged weapons are useless against him. And while the soldier’s blood doesn’t appeal to him—no mortal’s blood has since he met his Siren—he is a bit hungry.

He swallows the nausea rising in his throat. He doesn’t _want_ to kill her. He doesn’t want to be the monster they fear. But he doesn’t want to die. Not yet. Not until…

He doesn’t think about it. He turns to her, softly humming and murmuring his song under his breath. The soldier stops. He raises his voice. Her weapon falls to the floor and she drifts toward him until she’s standing before him. His vision hollows, his fangs elongate, throbbing when his gaze lands on the vein in her neck. He grips her arm to pull her closer, leaning down to graze his fangs along her neck.

She trembles, the fear that clung to her heightens tenfold as his song ends. He covers her mouth just as she’s about to scream and sinks his fangs into her neck.

When he is finished, he sets her limp body against a tree, hoping someone will find her to bury her properly before her body is consumed by the other roaming beasts or rot overtakes it.

Arin doesn’t look back as he runs away.

***

Only when the sun has set, and when the prick in his skin settles, does Arin slow. And it’s only then that he notes the forest scents have given way to the one he’d been fighting his hardest to ignore, one that called to him at every waking moment, and haunted him in his dreams.

Wildflowers and hay.

With the prick in his skin from the proximity of the weapons gone, he feels the tugs that linger within him no matter how far he runs, pulling him closer and closer to her. If he pays attention, if he stops struggling against himself to get away, he knows he’d hear the song he knows all too well. Already, he can make out the softer notes that gently rise while his feet carry him through the forest of their own volition.

_This way, this way._

The song rises and rises, the tug on his soul pulling at him harder and harder. His feet move faster and faster until the trees blur beside him. The song spills from his own tongue, answering to the call.

Her scent is everywhere now. It envelopes him, choking him, lodging in his throat at the tease of what she may taste like. His fangs throb, the image of him sinking them into her flesh nearly causes him to stumble. His vision is tunneling, leaving only room for him to see the path that leads to her.

Arin knows he should fight it, knows if he tries hard enough, he’d be able to break the hold her song—his song?—has on him and he’d be able to turn back, run far away. He’d, at last, venture across the sea to find what lies beyond it. Perhaps he’ll make a home there, away from the weapons and the coming war. Away from his Siren. He berates himself for not having thought of it sooner.

But it’s too late. He’s already at the edge of the trees. She’s already in his sight.

The layout of the traveling circus while on rest has not changed over the course of the years, but the number of large carriages has. In place of one is a large cage, containing a tiger, and there is where she stands.

The fire highlights her features. She’s different. She stands a little taller, she’s a little leaner, and her hair is slightly more red than the gold it had been. Her face is a little sharper and spattered with more freckles. She sticks her hand through the cage, and he nearly sprints to pull her back—to quench his thirst—but the tiger doesn’t attack her. It doesn’t so much as growl at her.

Arin’s heart sputters when she smiles as the tiger nudges its head into her palm. She rakes her fingers through its fur. It’s then that he notices the sack she has hidden behind her back. Somehow, despite his senses being filled with her and her alone, he can tell the sack carries fresh meat. He’d know even without the sack being soaked with blood.

She pulls it from her back, throwing the meat in the cage. She lets the sack drop and kicks it away. She says something to the tiger, but Arin doesn’t make sense of it, not when his ears are full of their song. His eyes drift between the tiger, the meat, and her. Her. Her. Her. _Always her_.

He _does _take a step toward her, vaguely aware of several people shifting, ready to turn their attention to him. One of them is her. Their eyes meet. Hers widen, her lips part. Her wildflower and hay scent tangles with the unmistakable musk of fear.

It breaks the hold on him. He rears back into the trees, shutting his eyes to wash away his hollowed sight.

_This way, this way._

Arin moves further back into the trees, until everything stops. He hadn’t even sensed her following him.

_Flee_.

His back hits a tree trunk, and he finds himself in a similar situation as he did four years before. The key difference, instead of a poisonous branch at his neck, there is a dagger. A dagger that makes his skin prickle and sends shocks throughout his body without even piercing his skin. A dagger that dulls his senses until there is nothing but the smell and feel of it on his skin.

For the second time that day, Arin comes face to face with a weapon made to destroy his kind. He wonders if the gods are sending him a message.

His hunger pangs in his stomach, his throat, and in his gums, at her proximity, but he keeps himself against the tree, under her control. He reaches behind him to dig his fingers in the tree trunk to keep from reaching for her.

He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t want to kill her, that he doesn’t want to have a second kill on his hands for the day. He tells himself it has nothing to do with the way her eyes skim him from head to toe, pointedly taking note of his grip on the tree, her with a furrowed brow and her lips turned down in a frown.

He tells himself it has nothing to do with the way his heart speeds up at the small traces of moonlight that bounce off her pale face.

“I recognize you,” she says, lowly, her breath fanning across his face. She’s grown more accustomed to the Herrani language, her accent much less heavy than it had once been.

Perplexingly, her eyes soften. Arin stops breathing when she smiles and steps back, dropping her arm with the dagger to her side.

With the dagger no longer concealing his senses, the song returns. His fangs elongate, throb harshly. His vision hollows. He grips the tree harder, resounding cracks fill the quiet of the forest.

But she doesn’t run away from him. She doesn’t bring her dagger to his flesh again. Instead, she eyes him with a small tilt in her head. His eyes immediately find her pulse, and his tongue runs across his fangs involuntarily.

The girl backs away considerably, and he thinks that she’s going to run, but she doesn’t. Arin has the room to leave, but, like her, he does no such thing. His fingers sink deeper into the tree trunk, more cracking reverberating through the forest. The longer he stays in her presence, the louder the song rings in his ears and the more the monster within him—his _true_ monster—breaks free. He holds his breath. He shuts his eyes.

Further confusing him, she says, “I’ve been looking for you.”

Under his breath, he says his prayers in Herrani, then in Dacran, and in his relatively newly acquired language of Valorian. But it doesn’t matter how many times he says his prayers, doesn’t matter how many different prayers he says, the song still plays, and she’s close enough for him to grab. For him to devour.

Arin whirls, ready to run, but she catches the strap of his bag, crying out in shock as she’s yanked forward with him.She tumbles to the ground, and the scent of her blood wafts through the air.

There’s nothing he can do to stop himself from springing on her.


	5. Chapter 5

The Hunter

When his vision returns, Arin finds himself staring at the canopy of leaves and branches above him. A twig digs into his back uncomfortably, but he finds that he can’t move. His arms are stretched out above his head and the heels of his feet are together, keeping his legs locked tight.

He smells blood, _her_ blood, but he doesn’t taste blood on his tongue. Still, his stomach sinks, the anchor keeping him chained to the forest ground. He still hears the song, though it’s much more faint. He still feels the phantom throb of his fangs, almost as if they want to extend, while simultaneously refusing to do so.

He tries to move his head, to find the girl and make sure he didn’t harm her, but his head, like his body, remains frozen in place. The branches and leaves become a curtain of hair, softly cacooning him in her scent, and the most beautiful face he’s ever seen for the third time in his long life. He thinks he’s been called to stand before the gods, when he remembers that he should not at all be thinking of his Siren this way. He should not be near her at all.

And when he thinks about it, she should be dead. She should not be standing above him with a grim sort of smile on her face, eyes glittering lightly with amusement and inquisition—expecting something from him. The song should be louder, he should feel the need to sing along. Her scent should be driving him mad. _She should be dead_, and he should be the true monster the people fear.

Arin frowns at her. “You’re alive.”

“Barely,” she titters, her breath sending a shudder through his spine. He feels the thirst, but it’s not as strong as it had been earlier. It’s manageable.

_How?_

The girl stands from where she’s crouched beside him, and for a moment he thinks she’s going to leave him there—he _hopes_ she’ll leave him there—but he hears her hand shifting through the earth and she returns to his side with her dagger in her hand. It must have fallen in their scuffle. He’d been too drowned in bloodlust to remember.

His eyes are the only part of his body he can control, so he shuts them when she shamelessly lifts part of her dress to sheathe it, his cheeks warming. He doesn’t open them until he senses her sit beside his prone body.

She grins down at him, saucily. Arin can only think the girl is odd. Mad. After all, who willingly sits beside—and taunts—a vampire, a monster? One who tried to kill her, no less. He has to get away from her lest he become the vampire who went mad.

She must see the anxiety on his face, or perhaps even his hunger, because she purses her lips and says, “I’m not a hunter.” As if it has any meaning to Arin at all. “My father tried to teach me as much as he could. He went as far as to hire his best hunter to be my tutor, but combat isn’t my strength.” She shrugs, her eyes drifting slightly. “But I don’t want to be a hunter.”

Silence befalls them. He wants to speak, to take away the faraway glaze in her eyes, but it’s been so long since he’s last spoken to anyone who wasn’t Tensen, and he finds himself speechless.

Feeling and control steadily return to Arin’s limbs, but still not enough for him freely move. The least he’s able to do is turn his head to her. He can smell her better. The song gently swells in his ears, and within himself.

Distracted by the planes of her face, her slightly sunburned nose and cheeks, her lashes brushing her cheeks with every blink, he begins to murmur along.

She stiffens, her attention shifting to him. She frowns, and pulls a vial of a red liquid from her boot. She removes the cork, leans over him, and pours a drop of the liquid in his mouth. Then she removes her dagger and pokes her finger. Despite himself—horrified with himself—he tries to bite her hand when she brings her finger to his lips, smearing her blood across them, but she’s careful to avoid his fangs.

He licks at his lips, his breathing shallows. Her eyes narrow when he uses the little control he has over his body to shift closer to her. She scrambles away from him, hissing a word in a language he doesn’t understand.

He inhales sharply. He wants to scream but it lodges in his throat. The word singes his body from the inside out. On the outside, he feels as though his skin is shedding bit by bit. His power all but evaporates. 

Then his body turns to stone.

Arin realizes this is what she must have used to contain him. And the Valorians have more than just their weapons to use against his kind. The thought both intrigues him and terrifies him. The thought of _her_ having this kind of power intrigues him and terrifies him.

The girl stands, stashing the vial in her boot again. She shakes debris from her dress and smoothes it out.

“The charm will wear off in a few hours. I’m sure the others are worrying about where I’ve been for these last few hours already.” The girl rakes her gaze over him. “I’ll return before then. Maybe by then you’ll have an explanation for why you’ve come back for me after all these years.”

It’s only when she walks away that Arin sees his bag slung across her body.

*

Arin barely manages to sit up, gaining just the right amount of feeling in his legs to crawl to the tree to sit against while he waits for full control of his legs, but lethargy settles deep in his bones. He lets his head fall back on the trunk, lets his heavy lids close.

His powers are returning. The song is gradually swelling, so he keeps his lower lip tightly contained between his teeth, disregarding how his blood might tempt other vampires that may be lurking too closely. He tries not to breathe as much as his lungs can allow him. More than anything, he doesn’t want to attack the girl again.

He doesn’t want her to return for him. He prays for her to change her mind, to forget about him. He prays to regain full control of his legs so he can run while she’s still away. But then he remembers she has his bag, and he tells himself that he stays because he’s waiting to get it back. Because it would be too much of a hassle to make another satchel and map and gather things he would need to make the map, considering Arin isn’t welcome with the humans or his own kind. He’s alone.

Yes, he tells himself. That is why he stays.

He _could_ sneak into their campsite to retrieve his bag and leave should she decide not to return. But he didn’t trust himself. Not around anyone, though he rarely made it a habit to be around mortals when he was thirsty, but he didn’t trust himself, most especially, in her presence.

Her presence that was growing stronger with every step she takes toward him, sending his senses into an even larger frenzy. The dagger she carries with her, sending his senses in the opposite direction, tearing him in two.

She’s not alone. Beneath the song, Arin hears restrained squawking, and the rustling of a sack? Beneath the scent of wildflowers and hay, he smells a warmblooded, corn scented animal—two of them.

Arin’s legs are nearly fully functional. He’d be able to snatch his bag from her and flee. He would look quite foolish stumbling away rather than running, but at least he’d be away from her and the damned song that called to him to devour her in one go. A song he hated having to use at all.

She stands before him, he feels it, but he keeps his eyes closed. He digs his heels and fingers into the ground, suddenly preferring having the charm she used on him in place, even if it had been rather painful.

He grunts when she unceremoniously dumps the chickens on him. His hands leave the earth to grip the sack of panicking animals. She drops his bag beside him. She gasps when his black eyes settle on her and her wild scent is replaced with one of fear. His gaze settles on her neck, her pulse and he shifts, trying to keep himself grounded while also wanting to lurch at her. Her hand flies to her dagger, now sheathed at her waist. She wisely steps away from him, nodding at the sack in his lap.

“Blood is blood, is it not?”

Slowly, finger by finger, she wraps her hand around her dagger, pulling it from its sheathe and holding it out in front of her. It’s only when he recoils that he realizes he’d been crouching, the sack forgotten by his bag. His lips curl in distaste and pain lances through his body in the form of spikes trickling over him.

She cautiously takes another step back. “I hope the two are enough to keep you… lucid. I can’t take any more than that.”

His tunneled vision drifts between the dagger that he desperately wishes to avoid and her neck that he desperately wishes to taste._She_ lurches forward with her dagger stretched toward him when he stands abruptly, scooping the sack of chickens and his bag from the ground. He flinches, jerking backward, just before he turns, sprinting into the forest.

He hears her following behind him from afar.

“Wait!” She calls out. “Wait, don’t go just yet!”

Arin doesn’t understand why she wants him near, when it’s clear he would kill her if he had the chance, even if it was the last thing he wanted.

He runs, but she doesn’t let up, effortlessly keeping track of his movements despite him being so far ahead of her. He needs to lose her. He almost laughs at the unease—the wave of sadness—that makes his heart ache at the thought of losing her in any context.

Tensen hadn’t been wrong then, about Sirens being the closest thing vampires had to a mate. For all that Arin wanted to drain the girl of her blood, he wanted… more from her. He wanted to know her.

But then, Arin has been alone for centuries. He blames his loneliness for his yearning.

In an attempt to shake her, Arin veers left sharply. He hears her stumble and utter a curse (rather adorably) beneath her breath. Then he climbs a tree just as she collects herself and traces after him. On light feet, Arin hops between the trees, trying to lure her back to her campsite.

He chooses a tree with wide enough branches in the area that’s close enough for her to return safely should she give up and settles in. He knows she’s not far. The song is still loud and his thirst is unbearable.

He removes one of the panicked chickens from the sack, finding that the girl had bound their beaks, wings, and feet. He feeds from it, choking back a gag as feathers get caught in his mouth. He stuffs the lifeless chicken in the sack and feeds from the other.

It is the first and only time he will feed from birds, Arin vows, using the sack to wipe his mouth clean of feathers. In any case, feeding from them did nothing in particular to quench his thirst for the girl, but his hollowed vision lessens slightly and her call to him softens enough, that had she been in front of him now, the urge to attack her wouldn’t be as strong.

He hopes, at least.

Perhaps there was a correlation between feeding and his bloodlust for her. He’d have to ask Tensen when he had time.

Feeding _did_ purge the remains of the charm from him; the eerie fatigue from earlier was gone.

Arin cautiously stretches out, so as to not make a sound or to let part of him dangle from the tree to keep from alerting her to his presence. But part of him _wants_ her to find him. He anticipates what happens next.

And if nothing else, hunger and all, Arin… is having fun. It had been a long time since Arin felt like he was playing just for entertainment, not survival. Though he didn’t think the girl would feel the same. After all, twice now he’s tried to attack her.

His spirits dull, remembering that he is a vampire. He feeds from _life_, while he is stuck in between the living and the dead. He is a monster who brings death to those nearest to him, either by his own hand or by those hunting him. Nothing more and nothing less.

With this revelation, he pulls his charcoal and map from his bag and nearly drops them. He hadn’t noticed her scent on his things until then, but it wasn’t just the smell that made him pause.

Parts of the map that were empty, likely consisting of places he had yet to venture (namely toward the sea), are now filled. Some corrections have been made to other parts. Little strikes made with ink mark several locations he hasn’t been, and a couple of places he has. She’d even marked which places had the weapons made for hunting vampires, and which were, as she’d written it, vampire loyalists.

He can’t fight the grin from spreading across his lips, nor can he help but wonder what the marks mean. Or rather, what it means that she had filled out more of his map for him. Were they places she had traveled to with her circus? Was it something she wanted him to know? Were they places she’d heard of and wished to see?

Arin wants to ask her these things. He wants to know them even more than he wants her blood. The thought startles him, but now that he acknowledges it, he understands it to be true. His cheeks heat. He’s grateful she’s not there to tease him again.

He sets his items in his bag as quietly as possible, and watches her from his peripheral as she rounds a tree. If _he _were not a vampire, he would have thought she was one. She certainly looks the part: the stray spatters of moonlight that wafts through the leaves bounces off her skin and dress, giving her an almost ethereal glow; she’s woven her hair into a braid that falls over her shoulder, bits of stray hair framing her face, and Arin’s fingers itch to push them into place; her steps are light, just barely brushing the earth, but sure, as if the forest were her home the way it is for him.

Her eyes are trained to the ground as she slowly turns, and even from his vantage point, Arin notes her brows furrowed pensively. She pads over to the small break in the trees where Arin had stormed through. She crouches, her fingers skim the dirt and plants tenderly, touching the ghost of something other than nature.

He swallows back a groan as she straightens, steadily making her way for his tree. Her Siren call seeps through him like a crushing wave the closer she gets to him, tangling with his soul, the little control he gained after feeding fading bit by bit. He lets his legs hug the branch, gripping it for dear life. He stiffens, holding his breath just as she reaches the base of his tree. He doesn’t dare to move an inch.

She circles the tree, then doubles back. With a frown marring her lips, she breathes out a sigh and, with a grumble, shuffles toward her campsite, giving up.

As Arin waits for more distance to be put between them, he busies himself from the call with preparing for the journey to an island the girl placed on his map, mentally listing the items he plans on taking with him. Just the essentials, nothing more. After his family’s demise, he never had much anyway. What he did have was lost during a second assassination attempt when he was a child.

That was when Arin learned he didn’t need much to survive, and it was best for him to never be in one place for very long. He thinks of the small cave he carved into a mountain, and decides to stop there for a while before his quest for a long, peaceful rest.

_Flee. This way. _

_This way. Flee._

Arin’s bag and the sack of dead chickens tumbles to the ground when he’s jerked from his reverie of charm-free rest by a hand gripping his ankle roughly. He shakes his leg, a familiar exclamation of shock echos through the trees as the owner of the hand drops over the side of the branch, nearly pulling him down with her. Arin barely manages to collect himself, partially wrapping his free leg around the branch as firmly as he can with one leg, before he reaches for her, keeping her slipping grip on his leg.

This time, she doesn’t flinch when his black eyes settle on her, despite his glare. No—instead her near golden gaze alights with triumph and excitement, as if she’s just won a game, and she _smiles._ At _him_. Arin nearly loses his grip on her.

She tightens her hold on him, kicking her legs a little, giving herself just enough momentum to wrap her own legs around the branch. Arin helps her settle on the branch, letting his legs dangle off the sides. She follows suit, her smile never fading. It terrifies him.

She smells divine, and truly, he doesn’t think one bite would hurt them much. Her Siren call and all, Arin is a pureblood vampire, which means he has more control than those who are turned. Her grin slips when he shifts forward, eyes locked on her neck. She reaches for her dagger.

Not for the first time that night, he discovers how much he’s terrified of her. Her dagger, her charms, whatever other hunter tricks she may be hiding. Her call to him. How easily she had found him. Mostly, he’s terrified of her incessant need to follow him, to be so close to him. If she hadn’t detained him with the charm, hadn’t threatened him with her dagger more than once already, he would almost believe that she _wants_ him to kill her.

Keeping one of her hands near her dagger, she lifts her free hand to hold up a chicken feather.

“Found you.”

*

Settled firmly on the ground, Arin moves to collect his bag, but is met with a dagger and an obstacle instead. He cringes away from the weapon.

“Wait,” she pleads. “Please, just wait.”

He doesn’t want to wait. His head is swarming with bees while being bogged down by bricks. His vision has been strained, hollowed for hours. He’s had one too many charms placed on him, and he’s been thirsty for far too long. Arin is tired. He wants to hunt, fill his belly with the largest wild animal he can find, and then he wants to sleep away his leaden bones.

He wants the song to stop. He wants her to stop.

But even as he thinks it, Arin recants the thought. It makes his chest ache.

“You…” she begins, lowering her blade, lifting it again when he takes a step toward her that he quickly retraces. She holds his deep, blackened stare effortlessly. Finally, she says, “You’re not like the others we’ve crossed. You run away.”

In that moment, it’s not her hunter tricks that make him pause. It’s not his inner struggle with his monster. It’s not even her words that stop him from putting her flat on her back, retrieving his bag, and following his instincts—and his urge to keep her safe—to flee. It’s the tone with which she said them: inviting, curious, almost a question rather than a fact of her observance.

It’s a question he wants to answer, but he doesn’t trust what would leave his mouth. The lyrics are standing at the tip of his tongue, clawing at his lips, begging to be let free. In any case, Arin doesn’t know how much the hunters—or humans—knew about vampires. He doesn’t want to risk telling the girl she’s his Siren, and he runs away to protect the both of them. He doesn’t know what she would do with the information, though judging by her earlier anecdote, Arin doubts she would turn to the hunters with it, but if she did turn to her father, would it be used against his kind or act as a doorway to understanding them?

Given the animosity Arin witnessed throughout the years, and the growing tension between humans, hunters, and vampires, Arin doesn’t think he’s wrong to assume it would be against them. Or that any knowledge about the vampires would be used against them. After all, the hunters had to know enough about the vampires already to have the ability to create their weapons against them.

Besides, he doesn’t even know her name. And he knows better than to give her his.

“Why did you come back for me if you were going to run away again?” She frowns at his silence. All of her former swagger gives way to clenched hands, a tight jaw, and averting eyes. “I’m not going to tell anyone about you. I didn’t.”

Ah.

She thought he had returned to keep her quiet about his existence. It was Arin’s turn to frown. Forgetting himself, he opens his mouth and is crushed under a wave of hunger as her scent fills his lungs.

It strikes Arin then—the music, it’s incomplete. There’s only half of it. All this time, his soul was being lured to complete it, not to sing along.

So Arin sings to fill the gaps.

The girl’s eyes glaze. Her dagger falls to the floor. Arin vaguely makes out her fingers fidgeting at her sides as she drifts over to him. She stops when her chest just barely brushes against him. He reaches for her hand, her fingers still twitching.

It’s odd. His song typically paralyzes his victims almost completely, leaving them vulnerable to his control.

He brings her wrist to his nose, noting a small star shaped birthmark on her skin as he inhales her scent. He presses a light kiss to the vein at her wrist.

Between one blink and the next, Arin ends up flat on his back for the second time that night. He hadn’t noticed he’d stopped singing, or that she had moved. He hadn’t noticed her pull a vial from her boot—similar, but different to the previous one. The liquid was red, but it was darker, thicker. Dying embers and skunk spray mingles with wildflowers and hay.

She uncorks it and wedges the vial between his lips. The most vile tasting blood dribbles down his throat, and he fleetingly wonders if _she’s_ the one trying to kill him. He tries not to gag on the blood. Poisonous and all, his vision is clearing some. The song is fading some. His thirst quenches some.

Like the chickens, it doesn’t fully stop the ghostly touches of their song from caressing him, tempting him, but it quells it enough—much more than the animals—for Arin to gain consciousness, so that he may, at the very least, have _one_ conversation with her before he leaves for the island. He doesn’t plan on returning for two whole centuries. He’ll only return when he’s sure she’s died.

He suckles the vial until the last drop of blood slithers down his throat. Tentatively, he passes her the glass, careful not to touch her again. She tucks it in her boot. Arin sits up, and the girl sits before him a little ways away. _Good_. They stare at each other.

After a beat of silence, Arin clears his throat, gathering the courage to ask, “How did you do that?”

She answers with a slow blink, and a slowly growing grin. “Ah, so you _do_ speak. I was wondering about that.”

He doesn’t fight his eye roll, but it only makes her grin widen. “Who are you?”

She shakes her head. “I believe I remember asking you first.”

“Smith,” he offers her once again.

“Liar,” she quips.

Arin stares pointedly at his bag. She stands abruptly, stepping into his line of sight to shield it.

Hastily, she sputters, “Let’s play a game.”

He tries, he does. He tries very hard not to stare at the length of her legs and remember her lifting her skirts for her dagger. He tries, promptly fails, and chases away the creeping call by thinking about how he plans on getting passage for a ship. And though he desperately wants to see her face, wondering what he’d find there, he averts his gaze and watches the leaves bristle lightly in the soft breeze.

“You want to play a game?”

“Yes.”

“With me?”

“Yes,” she chuckles.

Once he’s certain he won’t embarrass himself, Arin turns his attention to her. Her face is set with hard determination, glee, and a sprinkle of mischief noted by a raised brow. His lips quirk as he bluntly, honestly, tells her, “You’ll lose.”

Both of her brows rise now, a silent taunt. Arin has never thought of himself as competitive until that moment. Then again, he hadn’t had anyone to be competitive with since his sister and any acquaintances he had as a child. But playing with Anireh mostly meant her bullying him, and the children of other vampire noble families were often too afraid to not let Arin get his way.

“You will,” he promises.

She would lose. It’s not just because Arin is a vampire. It’s not just because she is his Siren. Without those factors, Arin would still win. He’s been alive, and on his own, for far too long to not know how to hunt without having to rely on his paranormal senses.

Still, she seems to find his confidence in her eventual loss amusing because she counters, “Well, I caught you, didn’t I?”

Arin shrugs. “The god of luck favored you this once.”

“I don’t know how the gods can favor someone who doesn’t believe in them, but if the god of luck was on my side once, they will be again. It’s your turn to catch me.” She stalks toward his bag, and loops it over her shoulder. “If you find me, I will return your bag and answer your questions.”

_And you will answer mine, _the unspoken words an invisible tether between them.

Arin nods and the girl takes off.


	6. Chapter 6

The Prey

Arin hunts first.

He’ll let her marinate in her false sense of victory by taking his time to find her. Beyond that, feeding seems to help him control himself against her Siren call. Not completely. Arin doubts his eyes will fully clear, doubts his other senses will be fully functional while he’s around her, but it helps him stay sharp and away from the thought of her blood.

So he tracks the animals of the forest the mortal way, too distrusting of himself to hunt while in proximity of the call. He doesn’t want to accidentally let his control slip.

With a belly full of blood, Arin leisurely treks through the forest, following what was quickly becoming a scent he wants to bottle to carry around with him and the song of his soul.

Not for the first time that night, Arin discovers that he’s having fun. He knows he’s deliberately prolonging the game when, the closer he gets to her, the louder he makes his movements. Then he slows, mutes his steps to give her time to hide again. Until finally, she sneaks into her tent as a last resort, but Arin doesn’t know if it’s a last resort for her or for him. Somehow he feels like he would lose if he followed her, but perhaps she felt the same had she stayed in the forest.

He shudders as he enters the campsite with every intention of following her, but he senses the presence of more than just the girl’s hunter dagger and decides against it. So instead, Arin hides behind a tree and waits.

It only takes her fifteen minutes to emerge from the safety of her tent. With hesitant steps, she drifts toward the trees. He allows himself to blend into the shadows, steeling himself against the tree as he waits for her to pass.

She’s alert. He can see it in the way her head tilts this way and that, searching for any noise he might make. But she doesn’t look behind her. Doesn’t notice him until he’s tugging at the strap of his bag and pulling her to him. She gasps, and chokes back a scream.

“Found you,” he murmurs in her ear.

Without thinking, he brushes his nose just beneath it, tracing her skin to the nape of her neck. He sniffs her hair. His fangs pulsate. He feels her shiver against him and his brows knit together. Arin steps back, collecting himself.

She turns to playfully scowl at him over her shoulder. “You cheated,” she protests.

“And you didn’t?”

She has the audacity to shrug and smile at him sheepishly.

With a shake of his head, and a sheepish smile of his own, he says, “Now, I believe we owe each other some answers.”

When she nods, and passes him his bag, Arin somehow feels like he _did _lose.

“My name is Kestrel.”

“Arin.”


	7. Chapter 7

Nightly Whispers

“Why did you want to play a game?” Arin begins, starting with the easier questions, and hoping she would do the same for him. He has a feeling if he had allowed Kestrel to start, she would rip him free of his secrets.

She slides to the ground from the fallen tree they sat upon, by the river she’d lead him to. She pulls her knees to her chest, shrugging. “I was bored.”

“Bored?”

“Bored,” she repeats. She rests her chin on her knees. Softly, almost distantly, she continues, “Every day is the same. I wanted something new.”

He wants to ask her what she means, but he knows if he did, she would want an answer of the same substance. She rolls her head, so her cheek now rests on her knees and pins her eyes on him. For a moment, her scent changes, but before he can fully register the change, her familiar wildflower and hay scent returns. Her heartbeat stutters.

“Are you going to feed from me?”

Ah. It had been fear he smelled then. Arin frowns. He shakes his head.

“But you’re thirsty.”

“I’m not going to drink from you, Kestrel.” When her gaze drifts toward the campsite, he quickly adds, “I’m not going to drink from any of you.”

Her attention returns to him. “Why?”

The river suddenly catches Arin’s interest. He doesn’t know how much he should tell her. He doesn’t know if he wants to tell her the truth. But then… Arin has been alone for so long. His only source of socializing was Tensen and the rare shopkeeper he visited if he needed new clothes or any random bits and bobs he needed. There was also the occasional fellow nomadic vampire, but they typically kept their distances unless the party was hostile.

Arin inwardly grimaces at their blood on his hands. He didn’t so much regret eliminating the lower vampires that lost their control completely, letting their monster fully take over, but he didn’t particularly like killing, even if it was in self-defense. Missing vampires raised attention. Arin didn’t want attention.

He admits, “I… I don’t want to be this way.”

“Is that why you ran away? Why you tried to run away now?” She pauses, then asks, “Why you’re still trying to run from me?”

He sucks in his cheeks, as if that would cage the full truth from spilling. “Something like that.”

Trapped in their own thoughts, silence settles over them for a time. Arin slides down the trunk to sit on the ground next to Kestrel.

“When I… attacked you,” he breaks the silence, “the first time, how did you stop me?”

“My father is a hunter. He’s second to the head of the association. I told you, he wants me to be a hunter. He used to train me. He had the best hunter after him as my tutor until I left home.”

“Yes, but the vial. What is it?”

Her answer is silence. Arin looks back at her to find her watching him with slumped shoulders and a grimace. She’s protecting them. She’s protecting her father, despite the distaste that laced her voice when she spoke of him.

But more than that, her silence tells him the hunters obtain their power through unspeakable means.

Clear that no information would be given to him about the hunters, Arin changes the subject. “Why did you leave home?”

Kestrel stretches out her legs, leaning back against the tree. “I was bored.”

Arin chuckles. “Bored?”

She grins, repeating, “Bored. It was leave or stay, and be forced to become a hunter or marry. I wanted neither of those things.”

“You don’t wish to marry?” Arin can’t quite wrap his head around the notion. He remembers marriage being a topic Anireh loved to squawk about whenever she could, especially when it involved another pureblood they’d considered their prince at the time.

“One day,” she sighs. Her gaze is soft on him, but the longer she stares at him, the more he feels as though he’s been gutted.

“Why did you join the circus?”

“Aside from spiting my father, it was the only place that would allow me to play the piano whenever I wished.”

His brows raised. “You’re a musician.”

She scowls at him. “A pianist, yes. Is it so strange?”

“No,” he answers without hesitation. It’s only when he says it does he realize how much he believes it. He doesn’t know Kestrel much, and he knows he will never know her past this night—he simply won’t allow it—but a deep part of him seems to know this about her.

Her twitching fingers replay in his mind. Arin had never been particularly strong at playing instruments, his voice being the only musical talent he had. His parents were often invited to balls with the hope they could be convinced to let Arin sing for the masses, so long as it was not his luring song. But learning different instruments, mostly focused on the piano, had been part of his lessons as a child, and he deducts that her fingers had been playing along with him, playing the song on phantom keys.

He offers her a small, and what he hopes to be an encouraging smile. “It fits.”

Her cheeks flush. Arin grits his teeth, hoping to relieve some of the pain that pulsed in his gums from his fangs. He scoots away from her, shifting so that his back is turned to her. He’s running out of time, the affects of his recent feeding is fading.

“Why did you come back?” Kestrel asks. “How did you find me?”

The answer is on the tip of his tongue. He wants to tell her the truth. But just like she can’t—or won’t—tell him about the hunters, he can’t—and won’t—tell her about the vampires. Most especially about _him_. Her resounding sigh oddly curls in his gut. Her disappointment a cloud above their heads.

He wants to apologize, but he doesn’t quite know why. He just doesn’t want her to feel... Oh.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, his mind drifting.

The ground trembles as Kestrel shifts, warily approaching him. Her arm bumps the back of his lightly. Gently, her hand nudges between his waist and arm, resting in the crook of his elbow before gradually gliding down his arm to his hand. Her warm hand wraps around his, finger by finger and she squeezes it, sending a jolt through Arin’s spine. He intertwines his fingers with hers. She rests her head against his back.

He should leave. He _knows_ he should leave. But, call or no call, he can’t seem to find the strength. Not when he knows she’s just as lonely as he is. Not when every part of him is fighting between wanting to drink from her and wanting to comfort her, the latter unexpectedly superseding the former.

“It’s all right.”

It’s a long while before either of them utter another word. When they do speak, it’s clear something has changed between them. Though they keep their knowledge of the hunters and vampires to themselves, Arin tells her about his travels, and the places he still wishes to go. Kestrel tells him about her life before the circus, her adventures with the circus, and the things she still wishes to do.

Arin knows she’s trying to coax him into telling her more about himself, just as she, rather begrudgingly, accepts his deflections by allowing the conversation to remain on her, greedily digesting the crumbs he gives her, especially about his singing.

“Will you sing for me?” She asks sleepily, yawning. He feels her head nodding on his back as she fought to stay awake.

“No.”

“Why not?”

The song he wants to sing is the song that would destroy her, in turn destroying him.

“I’m tired.”

“Liar,” she slurs.

He laughs. It wasn’t entirely a lie. He _was_ tired. Being charmed twice had drained him, and though he had gained some energy from his feedings, he still has to fight off the affects of the call that progressively worsens the longer they sat so closely, and as the night went on.

“I like your laugh,” she blurts, adorably, making Arin laugh again. “It’s like music. I imagine it’s like your singing.”

Arin skillfully angles his body to rest against the tree, mindful not to jostle Kestrel too much to keep her head from hitting the tree. He lets his head fall back, half resting it atop hers and half against the trunk. Absentmindedly, he lifts their still clasped hands to his lips, and presses a light kiss to her birthmark. He presses his nose to her wrist, licking it lightly. He drags a fang along her vein, but he restrains himself from puncturing her skin.

Her voice is barely a whisper when she asks, “Will you come back?”

He shuts his eyes, keeping her wrist against his nose, committing the shape, the warmth, the softness of her hand in his; the silkiness of her skin against his lips; the mold of her body to his to memory. “No, Kestrel.”

She sighs, dismayed. Dreamily. “I think… I think I’m going to miss you.” Her breathing evens out.

Arin doesn’t tell her he’ll miss her too.


	8. Chapter 8

Gone Redux

He wakes with the smell of Kestrel’s blood in his nostrils, his body anchored to the earth—a feeling that’s becoming far too familiar for his liking—in the same angled position he had fallen asleep in.

Arin doesn’t want to acknowledge the sinking feeling in his chest. He brushes off the heavy ache of longing as the invisible weight of the charm rendering him immobile. He pretends the phantom warmth in his hand is his control over his body returning, not the imprint of Kestrel’s hand burning his palm. He locks away her daunting words of _I think I’m going to miss you_ in the recesses of his mind where he keeps his family.

He wants to erase her entirely, shut off the song playing distantly, cut the ever tugging threads on his being, slice off his nose to blunt her scent; rip out his tongue to forget the small, teasing taste of her blood.

All of it would be less painful than Arin thinking about why she’d charmed him in his sleep, than thinking he’d simply dreamed last night. Perhaps she had been using him as a source of information for her hunter father. Perhaps she had been lying and was a hunter herself.

But Arin can’t lie to himself.

Even Kestrel’s potential lie would be much less painful than Arin thinking Kestrel didn’t trust him.

He simply doesn’t want to think she was afraid of him.


End file.
